


Coins Upon Our Eyes

by ProfessorESP



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Fairy Tale Style, Gen, Human Sacrifice, Urban Magic Yogs, child sacrifice, city planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 00:11:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3915847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorESP/pseuds/ProfessorESP
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, the moon drowned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coins Upon Our Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> So... my headcanon about UMY!Lying decided it didn't want to be expressed in any way _other_ than fanfic, so here is this. Inspired by bog bodies, the history of Washington DC, _The Buried Moon,_ and kobolds as depicted in _American Gods._

 

Once upon a time, the moon drowned.

Long before the city was raised up out of the swamp, before the fae king came down from the hills and claimed the land as his own, before the first men tied their boats along the shore of the rivers, the swamp was a dangerous place in the dark. When the moon waned in her power, many of Faerie’s darkest creatures crept out of their homes underhill and terrorized the humans who dared walk unguided through the night air.

The moon heard tale of the dangers of the swamp and took it upon herself to test the rumors. She donned a dark, hooded cloak, and hid her bright hair and face before walking down the paths into the wilderness. During her walk she came across a child, lost in the marshes. She took off her hood and used her light to fend off the dangerous fae and lead the child to safety. Unfortunately, she was unaccustomed to the uneven footing of the path, and fell into a pool, her cloak catching on a branch and her hood sliding back over her face. The water spirit in the pool, released now that the moon’s light was hidden, dragged her down into his depths and drowned her. The child watched from the path, horrified, as the faint light within the pool weakened and finally extinguished.

The people of the marsh lived in fear for many days, huddling together after dark as the creatures of Faerie ran through the swamp and scratched at their doors, no longer held at bay by the light of the moon. They talked amongst themselves, asking if anyone knew where the moon could have gone, until finally someone went and asked the child who had been in the swamp the day of the moon’s death. They told the villagers everything, and when they finished there was a great murmur among them. Something must be done, everyone agreed, but no one knew quite how. Reviving the dead was a magic none of them possessed. Questions and uncertainty filled the air until the village wise woman raised her hand. Silence fell as she spoke.

She told them of a ritual, the kind of old magic only remembered by the sacred and the fae, that would revive the powers of those long dead, but it came at the price. The villagers assured her that they would do anything in their power to revive the moon and make night safer once again. Three times she asked if they were certain, and three times they pledged to pay the price. So she told them: in order to revive the moon, they must take a child of their own and drown them in the same place the moon had met her fate.

The child who had watched the moon drown cried out in fear. When the adults of the room turned to look at them they tried to run, but was easily caught by those who were older and far stronger than they. The people of the village tied up the child and carried them into the swamp, ignoring their pleas for mercy. They threw them into the pool where the moon had drowned and watched until the bubbles stopped and the water grew still once again. Then they returned to the village and prayed that their sacrifice had not been in vain.

It had not. The remains of power that slept within the moon’s bones pulled life out of the child and rose, returning to its place in the sky. The marsh once again became safe to travel under the light of the moon, and as time passed and generations lived and died the people forgot the sacrifice they had made.

But the water remembered. The water, and the child.

For the ritual had not taken all of the child’s life- enough of it to make them no longer human, and enough to make them no longer living, but not enough to make them dead. Not nearly enough. So they lay trapped underneath the water, watching the moon rise above them night after night, and remembered.

Time had no meaning to them, in their watery prison, but they understood that a long time had passed when they were finally able to return to the surface and breathe once again. A city had sprung up around them, carefully marked streets crisscrossing the land that had once held nothing but trees and water. The humans were building a canal, and the digging had broken the water’s hold.

And so the child who was no longer a child lived freely, for a time. They fed their power by stealing the children who strayed too close to the water’s edge, drowning them as they had once drowned and stealing their life to prolong their own. When the children learned to stay away from the canal they began to wade through the streets, flooding the gutters to drown children in the streets where they played. Soon the children learned to play indoors, and they began to resort to traveling through pipes and into bedrooms, drowning them in their little beds.

And then the builders came.

The canal, it seemed, had grown too unsanitary for mortal standards. It was no longer needed as a waterway, and so the city planners had decided to bury it and turn it into the city’s desperately needed sewage line. The creature fought tooth and nail, but no matter how many builders and surveyors they drowned the project continued day after day, until they placed the final brick and sealed the creature in the water once again.

And now they wait. They wait for reckless teenagers to dare each other down into the sewers before pulling them from the ladders and down where they can feed. They wait for workers who wade through their tepid water to whisper the name they’ve been given by those who notice the faint sound of footsteps in the dark pipes. They wait for water fae to brush past the boundary of their chains, silent in their fear of what lurks in the hidden river below.

They wait. And eventually, when the moon leaves her perch to travel where humans fear to tread, they will stop waiting.


End file.
